I'm interested in using clarified butter for deep frying, because I have a couple cows, and I don't have an oil press. Any thoughts or recommendations? My wife fried some okra fritters in clarified butter last week, and they seemed to come out very nice. Is there any reason I can't replace peanut/sunflower oils altogether?

Eric, I surprised no one has answered this. I was using homemade ghee (clarified butter) for frying, but I started rendering my own pastured lard and tallow a year ago. I love how they fry (and taste) and it's much cheaper to use than clarified butter.

I have done just that: replaced purchased fats with ghee, butter, lard, and tallow from our own animals. I do buy a gallon or two of premium California grown XV olive oil once a year for salads though.

I'd toss in my highest accolade for rendered moulard duck fat...but as they're not exactly hopping around everywhere, I completely agree - the animal fats are going to give you the flavor depth for certain applications (though the range of olive oils, too, IMHO, can't be missed, in their own right). My basic tendency is to use animal fats in animal products (as an oven component to pan-roasting land animals, for example), olive oils for confits of veggies (e.g., tomato confits), and the "neutral" oils for searing (e.g., grapeseed).